What ram speed for a Core 2 Duo cpu?

S

Shaman

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 17, 2006
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Hi everyone, what DDR2 ram speed is enough for a Core 2 Duo system? It's most likely gonna be the E6600 (but they all have the same FSB anyway) and the system is not gonna be overclocked. I've been out of the loop for a while, so I'm a bit confused with all the DDR2 speeds available. I would assume 533MHz is the ideal speed as it would run at a 1:1 ratio (533MHz x 2 =1066FSB) or am I way off here? I see ram speeds as high as 800MHZ or 1000MHz, is that only useful for overclockers?

Thanks.
 
If you absolutely want to run 1:1, then DDR2-533 is fine. However, most motherboards wil let you run the RAM at a higher speed than the FSB. This will let you system have more bandwidth for other devices that access memory directly if the CPU is loading the FSB with it's own memory accesses.
 
I don't necessarily want to run at 1:1, but more at the ideal bandwidth level for a non-overclocked system. I mean, if you go for a very high ram speed, at some point some of it goes to waste, right? But if getting 667MHz or 800MHz actually increases the performance of a non-overclocked system I will go for it. There wouldn't happen to be a benchmark out there comparing all the ram speeds performance with a Core 2 Duo, would it? :)
 
533 and 667 are at a similar price so why not 667?? plus if you decide to overclock in the future you wont have to spend again to upgrade.

speaking of DDR2 800, it does outperformance 667 but only by some 2%-3% overall, so you choose.
 
DDR800 would be ideal but then again I have some DDR667 that overclocked to DDR900.
 
I would get the faster ram, not for its performance benefits which are small, but for future upgrades.
 
Thanks everyone for the input, and for the benchmark Liquid Cool. Looks like it's best to either run at 1:1 or avoid 667MHz and go straight to 800MHz. I'll go for 800.
 
Shaman said:
Thanks everyone for the input, and for the benchmark Liquid Cool. Looks like it's best to either run at 1:1 or avoid 667MHz and go straight to 800MHz. I'll go for 800.
Click to expand...

I learned the hard way. I think I'm correct in saying:

it totally depends on the "FSB speed" you plan to use and explore and if you're aiming for the slight benefits of 1:1. Get the best price possible on very good and fast ram if you plan to overclock.

M
 
the Core 2 is not bandwidth starved as much as the older Pentium 4 design; PC6400 is more than enough to keep the COre 2 happy, even when overclocked, going to PC1066 or higher memory speed won't give you any tangible performance increase in real world apps and games, only in a few !benchmarks! you might notice a difference.
 
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